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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
22
Mixed:
5
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews
Season 1 Review:
This new version of The Late Show is a program I could fall in love with. There was a lot to love on Tuesday night.... Colbert's monologue was good, the energy was great. George Clooney's appearance was fine. The closing musical number, featuring musical director Jon Batiste and his band, Stay Human, along with Brittany Howard, Buddy Guy, Ben Folds, Derek Trucks and Colbert himself--was wonderful.
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Season 1 Review:
One thing is immediately clear about Stephen Colbert as the anchor of The Late Show: He’s very good at it. It’s impossible to take the measure of a show based on the first episode, but given the most superficial of impressions, the immediate takeaway is assurance. Colbert has this in the bag; it’s now just a question of letting him do his thing.
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Season 1 Review:
The jokes were mostly solid, but anodyne. Colbert projected enthusiasm, but it felt like he was in a hurry to get through the segment and to the desk.... The guest interviews were not great... For the premiere of the new Late Show to be a success, Colbert, like those guys, needed to convince us that he was having fun. And like the other Stephen Colbert did for so long, he needed to make us have fun watching him. Mission accomplished.
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Season 1 Review:
Promising aspects of opening night were the interactions with Jon Batiste and the Stay Human band, the Oreo cookie binge as a metaphor for indulging in Donald Trump jokes, the nods to both Letterman and Jimmy Fallon, and the peek at what Colbert will be without his Comedy Central blowhard conservative mask. The George Clooney “interview,” not so much.
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Season 1 Review:
Colbert’s first episode generally stuck to late-night conventions--the monologue, banter from behind a desk, interviews, and band were all present and accounted for--but it tweaked and teased them in heartening ways, especially for a debut. The show looked and felt like late night, but a more wild, antic, theatrical version, especially once Colbert got off his feet and got behind that desk.
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Season 1 Review:
That said, the first Colbert Late Show--four months after David Letterman’s retirement--was promising if not perfect, ranging from sharp meta-late-night humor and funny politically tinged bits to the kind of bland chitchat that makes the network late-night talk show an often frustrating genre.
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Season 1 Review:
There were some nerves--how could there not be?--and there were plenty of flashes of the wickedly smart and super-fast comedic intellect he’s honed over the years. Did it all work? Of course not. But what I liked most was the feeling that Colbert was going to reveal a side of himself that he didn’t get to show much on the Colbert Report or even The Daily Show.
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Season 1 Review:
The overabundance of the first Late Show With Stephen Colbert may be a flaw then, but it’s also the best reason to be excited for the second, and the next hundred. This show may not completely know what it is yet, but it knows exactly who its host is: a smart, curious, playful entertainer who’s delighted to be there.
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